ABSTRACT
This chapter explores five key contributions to an understanding of soap opera celebrity. Given the writing-from-the-borders approach of this chapter, none of these works are directly "about" soap celebrity. The chapter examines various aspects of television, audience/fan, and/or celebrity studies that offer central insights into ways to think about and interpret soap stardom. Soap operas are low-status cultural objects in both Australia and the US but generate national-level celebrity in the former and niche celebrity in the latter – both potentially temporary if the actor leaves the soap. A review of US daytime magazines reveals how soap celebrity is produced and, more intriguingly, how soap celebrity is positioned by the magazines within the larger world of stars and stardom. Given the new landscapes of entertainment and of everyday lived experience, the meanings of soaps and soap stardom have been widely diffused.
